Claws Mail – an Ersatz for Thunderbird!?

It seems, they are currently destroying Thunderbird and it might be not long in the future when it is no longer usable well. I’ve been looking for an easy to use and stable mail client where the developers not constantly are changeing stuff just for fun and to annoy end users.

It may be that Claws Mail is an appropriate ersatz. Or maybe Sylpheed.

Both probably don’t support HTML Emails. Claws has a plugin that makes viewing HTML emails possible. It uses the Dillo-Webbrowser. That one is very light and small and fast but doesn’t support Javascript and maybe not all of CSS. But do you need such stuff in an email client?

Here some more info about claws in german

How to concatenate strings with GROUP BY while joining multiple tables in MS SQL SERVER?

It is quite complicated in MS SQL SERVER.

-- Use a Common Table Expression (CTE) to create a temporary table 
-- which is only valid for this query to join tables. 
WITH cte AS (
select a.Artikel, a.Name, lb.Menge, 
lb.Platz 
from Artikel a 
JOIN LAGERBELEGUNG lb on a.ARTIKEL = lb.Artikel 
where a.SACHGRUPPENKLASSE like 'Ven%' and a.Name like '%2016%') 

-- Use a query with STUFF and FOR XML PATH on the CTE for concatenation

select t.Artikel, max(t.Name) Name
     , stuff( ( select ', ' + Platz
                from cte
                where Artikel = t.Artikel
                for xml path('') ), 1, 1, '') AS Platz
from cte t
group by t.Artikel

More about FOR XML PATH and STUFF on Stackoverflow, see 1st and 2nd post there.
And more on Sqlshack.

TreeSize Free

WinDirStat is a tool to find space thieves on drives and I liked it much. But the newest WinDirStat I could find is v 1.1.2 from the year 2005.

And it has got severe problems. It does not work on our Strato-Server which runs Windows Server 2016 Standard. There it hangs, presumably in the servicing/packages directory.

The alternative Spacemonger 1.4.0 of the year 2000 has got the same problem.

WizTree 4.10 x64 does work very well, it is astonishingly fast, even over the servicing/packages directory. But it is not full freeware, it must be paid if you want to use it commercially.
And it has got a very annoying Donate button. I am not against Donate buttons in general. But this one shivers every some time – i hate this.

Now I’m using TreeSize Free.
TreeSize Free is full freeware even for commercial use. It’s quite fast, even over the problematic servicing/packages directory. And it’s got the nice feature that you can filter what it shall scan. So you can e.g. easily search for too big log files.

There are two paid versions of TreeSize with some additional features available also.

Jetpack Markdown Replacement

In my blog I’ve been using Jetpack Markdown for years. But lately I had to move the blog to another system and then Jetpack Markdown was no longer available. WordPress says that’s the case because it violates some WordPress guidelines. Strange enough that it didn’t violate any guidelines for years. I assume the brightest of the WordPress developers introduced some new guidelines which made Jetpack Markdown unusable. WELL DONE WORDPRESS DEVELOPERS.

Now I’m trying the Markup Markdown plugin and until now it seems to work. Though I’m not too content. Main disadvantages, which are quite annoying:

  1. It seems not to be possible to preview changes of already published posts.
  2. The editor likes to mark some words or abbreviations in a rosy color.
    image with rosy text

Markdown cheat sheet

What Description Syntax
Headers h1, h2, h3 #, ##, ###
Emphasizing italic, bold *inline*, **bold**
Code inline, block ` <- that's a backtick, ~~~
Links link, image [title](https://www.example.com), ![alt text](abcd.jpg)